TROY – In the past 11 months, Detroit Red Wings center Darren Helm has taken a lot of stitches, undergone major surgery and missed many games due to a couple of pucks to the face, a skate blade to the forearm and an awkward check.

“If I really wanted to, I could go out there,'' Helm said Friday. “It hurts moving around, kind of getting bumped around. I'd be wearing a full cage, but when I get blood flowing it starts kind of pulsing a little bit.

“We're not playing, so there's no sense to put it in too much aggravation, so I'm going to let it heal as much as I can.''

Helm needed stitches in his lip after being hit with a puck during pregame warmups in Nashville on Dec. 26.

He missed the final 10 regular season games after suffering a sprained medial collateral ligament on March 17, when he delivered a hit on San Jose's Dominic Moore but got the worst of the exchange.

Then, in his first game back, he had tendons in his forearm sliced by Alexander Radulov's skate blade in the playoff opener against Nashville, ending his season.

His latest injury would not have kept him out long if the season was underway.

“They said there's a bunch of little pieces of my orbital bone floating around in my cheek,'' Helm said. “They said it'll kind of come together on its own. It's not one of the major bones that, if it broke, I would need surgery. It's the smaller, they said, paper-thin bones.''

He has pondered this string of bad luck.

“I counted about 61 stitches since Christmas, major surgery,'' Helm said. “Hockey gods aren't on my side right now. I might have to do something to fix that, but it's hockey.''